Julius Welhausen made a major assumption that the reason Moses could not have been the author of the Torah was because there was no existing alphabet in the Middle East in his life time. The discovery of Ebla, however, not only reveals an alphabet 750 years before Moses’ lifetime, but three distinct alphabets: Akkadian, Sumarian and Eblaite.^181/393 Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic are derived from Akkadian.^385\79

Another critical presupposition made about Israel was that they could not possibly have developed in their day the moral legal system the Torah reveals. It was claimed that this moral legal system in Israel did not reach this stage of development until 800 to 1,000 years after Moses’ death. The tablets, however, found at Tell Mardikh, reveal that Ebla had comparable laws 700 years before Moses.^180/25 One should also consider that Moses was raised a prince of Egypt in all of the learning and sciences of Egypt. Knowing this fact, to say that Moses did not know how to write is ridiculous.

As we have already dealt with, Biblical scholars have for years claimed that the Torah had several authors, not just the one, Moses, because several names are used for God like Elohim and Yehovah. Reverend Mitchell Dahood, Dean of the Pontifical Biblical Institute’s oriental Faculty and a renowned authority on the languages of the ancient Middle East shares that they discovered in the Ebla Tablets the names "Il" (El short for Elohim) and "Yah" (short for Yehovah) combined with Northwest Semitic personal names showing clearly that the name Yehovah was known a 1,000 years before Moses. Some of the compound names discovered were Mi-ka-il, our modern "Michael", meaning "who is like El?"; and "Mi-ka-ya", meaning "who is like Yah?".^179/737-738

There are many other examples in Archaeology which provides an answer for the use of the compound name Yehovah-Elohim. Cyrus Gordon found at Ugarit (1400-1350 BC) deities with compound names. For example: Qadish-Amrar is the name of one and Ibb-Nikkal another. Thus it was discovered that it was common in ancient civilizations to use compound names for a god.^269/132-133

Amon-Re, the most famous god with a compound name, was a deity that resulted from the Egyptian conquest under the 18th dynasty. Amon was the god of the city of Thebes where the political power existed, while Re was the universal sun god. These two gods were combined because of the political leadership in Thebes and the universalism of Re. But Amon-Re is one god. This sheds light on the combination of Yehovah-Elohim. Yehovah refers to the specifics of the deity, while Elohim is more of a general or universal designation of the deity. This consolidation of Yehovah-Elohim demonstrates that Yehovah equals Elohim, which can be restated "Yehovah is God." Yet the documentarians tell us that Yehovah-Elohim is the result of combining the two documents J and E. This is as unfounded as using an A document and R document to explain the compound deity Amon-Re.

Documentarians assume that the evolution of moral laws was not high enough in Moses day for him to have written the moral laws in the Torah. Our modern day witnesses to the fact that when man does not have God’s revealed moral law as given in the Bible, he does not progress to higher moral law, but does away with it all together, but concerning this argument of Moses’ time, Millar Burrows in his book, What Mean These Stones?, documents that the standards in ancient law codes of the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites, as well as the high ideals found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the early Wisdom Literature of the Egyptians, completely refute these arguments.^305/46 It was not Israel’s moral standards that were raised by the surrounding cultures, but rather Israel who when they entered Canaan and encountered their pagan worship replaced it with their One God, Yehovah, and with Yehovah’s severe codes of ethics.

Concerning "The Priestly code," of the Torah the Documentarian Pfeiffer postulates: "Like all legislation, notwithstanding its deliberate timelessness and fictitious Mosaic background, bears the earmarks of its age, the first half of the Persian period (538-331 BC)."^306/257 The science of Archaeology, however, again completely refutes this argument. Archaeology has shown that there is no valid reason for dating the Levitical sacrificial laws late. Many of these laws appear in the Ugaritic material from the fourteenth century BC^307/33 The Israelites before the Exodus lived amongst the most advanced civilization in the world at that time: Egypt. Therefore they would naturally show forth more advanced concepts of jurisprudence than tribes they encountered in the desert.

The Code of Hammurabi, that was written between 2000-1700 BC, was found by a French archaeological expedition (1901-1902) under M. Jacques de Morgans direction at an ancient Susa site to the east of the region of Mesopotamia This code was written on a piece of black diorite. It stood eight feet high and contained two hundred and eighty two paragraphs. This was written several hundred years before Moses (1450 BC) yet contains some laws which are similar to those recorded by Moses.^308/121 This completely refutes the Documentarians hypothesis that the laws of the Torah were too advanced for Moses to have written them.

Some try to argue that because their are similar laws in the Code of Hammurabi to the laws in the Torah that Moses did not receive them from Yehovah but actually borrowed them from this code. Concerning this, J.P. Free in his book, Archaeology and Bible History, states the following:

"No real connection between the Mosaic laws and the Code of Hammurabi. Such an acknowledgment was made by G.A. Barton, liberal professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who said, ‘a comparison of the Code of Hammurabi as a whole with the Torah laws as a whole, while it reveals certain similarities, convinces the student that the laws of the Old Testament are in no essential way dependent upon the Babylonian laws. . . .’ The Code contains many laws peculiar to itself, including those relating to soldiers, tax-collectors, and wine-merchants."^308/121

The Ugarit, another archaeological find dating back to 1400 BC, also shows several similarities in their laws to the book of Leviticus. These tablets came from Ras Shamra a Canaanite city located on the Syro-Palestinian coast just opposite of the tip of Cyprus.^{305/234, 308/112}

Another archaeological discovery is the Lipit-Ishtar Code which date back to 1850 BC which extends the history of codified law by more than three centuries.^309/164 It also antedates the Hammurabi Code by more than a century and a half.^310/1

The same can be said of the Eshnunna law code of the Old Babylon period (1830-1550 BC). Hammurabi apparently incorporated some of this code into his own system. Two tablets found in 1945 and 1947 near Baghdad contain these ancient laws. Reunen Yaron points out that archaeology confirms that these tablets could not be dated after the reign of King Dadusha. The last year of Dadusha’s reign is set in the seventh year of Hammurabi. However, archaeology cannot set the date of its composition. The usual date given to the Eshnunna Law Codes is about 200 years before Hammurabi.^311/1-2

The kingdom of Eshnunna was a victim to expansionist policies that were also pursued with success by Hammurabi of Babylon during the fourth decade of his reign.^311/1 The discovery of the above two tablets adds additional evidence that the Hammurabi Codes were not the only source of an early codified law. The Laws of Eshnunna, written during the twentieth century BC in the Akkadian language, contains sixty paragraphs of law dealing with topics like the price of commodities, the hire of wagons and boats, the wages of laborers, marriage, divorce and adultery, assault and battery, and the placing of responsibility for the ox that gores a man and the mad dog that bites a man.^310/1

Then there is the Egyptian Execration Texts which date back to 2,000 BC These documents are statuettes and vases inscribed in Egyptian hieratic script with the names of potential enemies of the Pharaoh. If Pharaoh felt threatened by a rebellion, he would break the vase or statuette with the names of those involved in the rebellion written on it with a magical ceremony and as a result would somehow bring grief upon them. The group of vases from Berlin, published by Kurt Sethe (1926), date from the end of the twentieth century BC, while the collection of statuettes from Brussels, published by G. Posener (1940), date from the late nineteenth century.^312/127

Next there is the Nuzi Tablets dating back to 1500 BC In Nuzi, located in the northeastern part of Iraq and southeast of Nineveh. These tablets contained a whole archive of legal and social texts. What they found in these texts showed that the recorded details of the social and legal background of the patriarchs in the Old Testament was reflected accurately to the times in which they lived.^313/14 The Nuzians were formerly thought to be Hurrians, Biblical Horites, cave dwellers; but are now understood as Armenoid, non-Indo-Europeans of North Mesopotamia who prospered in the 1500-1400's BC. Though the patriarchs were not Nuzians, both cultures had many similarities due to the fact that they were contemporary and located in the same area geographically. for this reason the Nuzi Tablets help us to understand Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.^314/2 The Nuzi Tablets clarified many customs typical of the patriarchal age in the second millennium, but not of the Israelites in the first millennium BC.^315/87 These facts confirm to us the historical accuracy and authenticity of the Torah written in 1450 BC, not the social customs of 700 BC.^314/9

An example of how the Nuzi Tablets help us to understand Genesis are like the account in Genesis 16 where Sarah, Abraham’s wife, because she was seemingly unable to have children, gave Hagar her servant to Abraham to have children through. Later Jacob’s two wives, Rachel and Leah, did the same. Because of finds like the Nuzi Tablets, we now realize this was a common practice of that time and is mentioned in the laws and marriage contracts of that time. This custom is not found practiced in any other time other than the patriarchal period.^313/14

These many Historical documents and Archaeological facts show that the social institutions of the patriarchs are not made up but are genuine and definitely before Moses time, not after. They cannot possibly have taken place after Moses time because historical documents and archaeological discoveries after Moses time show completely different laws and customs. Also historical documents after Moses time do not support in any way the presuppositions of the Documentary Hypothesis.

Archaeologists have found and verified the remains of the Tower of Babel.¹⁸⁹ A Professor by the name of Oppert was sent by the French Government to study the inscriptions discovered in the ruins of ancient Babylon. In one of the inscriptions that was recorded by King Nebuchadnezzar, in which he calls the Tower of Babel Barzippa meaning "tongue-tower", he describes the ruins of the Tower of Babel and the king’s intent to rebuild the tower originally built by Nimrod sixteen centuries earlier. He describes that the original tower had been reduced from its original height until only a huge base of the tower, 460 ft. by 690 ft., standing some two hundred and seventy-five feet high remained. Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the city of Babylon with gold and silver. He also resurfaced the base of the Tower of Babel with Gold, silver, cedar, and fir on top of a hard surface of baked clay bricks. These bricks were engraved with the seal of Nebuchadnezzar and an inscription in Nebuchadnezzar’s words which, translated by Professor Oppert, stated the following:

". . . the most ancient monument of Babylon; I built and finished it. . . . The former king [Nimrod] built it, but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. . . . Merodach, the great god, excited my mind to repair this building."^288/40-41

In the Nineteenth century an inscription was discovered on a marble tablet in a ruined fortress on the seashore of Hadramaut in present-day Democratic Yemen which confirmed the reign of Jospeh and the seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine (Genesis 41). It was written around the eighteenth century BC which was the time the Biblical account took place. The inscription was translated into Arabic by Professor Schultens and later translated into English by Rev. Charles Forster. A part of the inscription stated the following:

"We dwelt in this castle seven years of good life—how difficult for memory its description! Then came years barren and burnt up: when one evil year had passed away, then came another to succeed it. And we became as though we had never seen a glimpse of good."^288/42-43

Further evidence was found in Yemen in a rich woman’s tomb. It was discovered in 1850 after being exposed due to a flood. it was later shown to a Mr. Cruttenden by Ebn Hesham, an Arab from Yemen.

In the tomb was contained a woman’s corpse that was covered in jewels and a coffer filled with treasure. Also found was an engraved stone tablet confirming the seven years of famine in Egypt and Joseph’s supervision over the graineries of Egypt. The inscription said some of the following:

"In your name O God, the God of Hamyar, I Tajah, the daughter of Dzu Shefar, sent my steward to Joseph, and he delaying to return to me, I sent my hand maid with a measure of silver, to bring me back a measure of flour: and not being able to procure it, I sent her with a measure of gold: and not being able to procure it, I sent her with a measure of pearls: And not being able to procure it, I commanded them to be ground: and finding no profit in them, I am shut up here."^318/44-45

Josephus in Josephus Against Apion. I, 26, 27, 32 mentions two Egyptian priest-scholars: Manetho and Cheremon who in their histories of Egypt specifically named Joseph and Moses as leaders of the Jewish race. Josephus states that Manetho and Cheremon stated that the Jews rejected Egypt’s customs and gods. They noted that the Jews practiced animal sacrifices which they witnessed on the first Passover. These historians also confirmed that the Israelites migrated to "southern Syria" which was the Egyptian name for Palestine. They also mentioned that Israel’s exodus occured during the reign of Amenophis who was the son of Rameses and the father of Sethos who reigned toward the close of the 18th dynasty which places the Israelites exodus between 1500 and 1400 BC. This confirms the Old Testament’s chronology for the exodus occuring in 1460 BC.

The Greek historian Herodotus discussed the Exodus in his book Polymnia, section c. 89: "This people [the Israelites], by their own account, inhabited the coasts of the Red Sea, but migrated thence to the maritime parts of Syria, all which district, as far as Egypt, is denominated Palestine."^288/36 Strabo, a pagan historian and geographer born in 54 BC also confirmed the history of the Jews and their escape from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. He wrote,

"Among many things believed respecting the temple and inhabitants of Jerusalem, the report most credited is that the Egyptians were the ancestors of the present Jews. An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called lower Egypt, being dissatisfied with the institutions there, left it and came to Judea with a large body of people who worshiped the Divinity"³²²

Discovered in the Wadi Mukatteb (the Valley of the Writing) in the Sinai Peninsula was a set of inscriptions which describe and confirm Moses’ leadership in leading the Israelites out of Egypt and the miraculous events that followed.^288/48 It is believed that these inscriptions were made by Jews who took part in the exodus or by people alive in the time of the exodus.

These inscriptions were first described by a historian by the name of Diodorus Siculus, who lived before the birth of Christ (10 BC), in his Library of History.³¹⁸ So ancient were the writings that no one in Christ’s day could translate them.

In 518 A.D. Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Byzantine Christian writer, also mentions the ancient inscriptions. Concerning them he stated that they appeared "at all halting places, all the stones in that region which were broken off from the mountains, written with carved Hebrew characters."^288/49 Cosmos came to the conclusion that they were made by the Israelites fleeing Egypt.

Other explorers which confirmed these inscriptions were Bishop Robert Clayton of Ireland (1753) and Rev. Charles Forster who published these findings in a book in 1862. He came to the conclusion that these inscriptions were a combination of both Hebrew and Egyptian alphabets describing Israel’s exodus out of Egypt.

One of the reasons it is believed that these inscriptions were made by Israelites at the time of the exodus, rather than a copy of the book of Exodus from the Torah, is because they appear to be an original account of the exodus. These inscriptions in rock give account of many of the miracles talked about in the Book of Exodus but have no familiarity with the description accounts given in the book of Exodus.

Rev. Forster found that five out of every six words used in the inscriptions are related to the Hamyarite (ancient Arabic) language which was the vernacular language of Egypt and Yemen. The writings are of two kinds: enchorial or common writing and hieroglyphic style of Egypt that was used by the priests and royalty. The significance of this and why it is believed that whoever wrote these inscriptions were probably Hebrew is, one, because they had to have lived in Egypt to have this kind of knowledge of these two alphabets and, two, because there is no historical records indicating that any Egyptians ever lived in the Sinai. The Bible however tells us that the Israelites lived in the Sinai for forty years.

Mentioned in the inscriptians are the following events of the exodus: the dividing of the red sea and the Israelites passing through safely while the Egyptian army was drowned; Yehovah’s (the name of the Hebrew God) miraculous provision of the quails to feed the israelites; The murmuring of the Jews against Moses; Yehovah’s miraculous provision of water out of a rock; His punishment of Israel for their gluttony and even the name Moses gave to the place where it occurred, Kibroth-hattaavah, which is mentioned in Numbers 11:34; and Exodus 32:6's account of the Israelites sitting down to eat, drink and play.

In 1761 a German explorer Barthold Niebuhr found an extensive ruined cemetery grave site of Jews which was discovered in the Sinai with inscriptions confirming they died as a result of Yehovah’s supernatural plague mentioned in Numbers 11:34-35.^319/113-114

Also mentioned in the Sinai Inscriptions were Miriam’s rebellion against Moses, Numbers 12:1-3, and the plague of the fiery serpents mentioned in Numbers 21.

Unfortunately the skeptics said they would not accept these Sinai Incriptions as being genuine unless someone discovered a bilingual inscription with the Sinai inscriptions on one side and another language on the other side for comparison, similar to the Rosetta Stone. Astoundingly a Sinai explorer by the name of Pierce Butler in 1860 discovered not a bilingual inscription, but a trilingual inscription in a cave on the Djebel Maghara mountain. This inscription contained three alphabets describing the same event, one of which was the same language used in the Sinai Inscriptions.^288/66-67

Three independent scholars have translated these Sinai inscriptions: Professor de Laval, Niebuhr and Rev. Forster. All three agree that these inscriptions were made by the ancient Israelites during the Exodus. Those who have criticized these conclusions have never done a translation of their own or given any historical or archaeological evidence to show otherwise.

The significance of this find is that it completely refutes and destroys the assumptions of the higher critics assertions that Exodus was not written by Moses and that the miraculous events recorded by Moses did not take place. They cannot say these inscriptions were made later to refute these discoveries because, as we have already documented, they were discovered centuries before the higher critics came along. It should also be noted that the higher critics of the Old Testament have never in the past 100 years ever come up with one shred of evidence historically or archaeologically to give support or credence to anything they have spoken against the authorship of Moses or the historical reliability of his writings, not one!

The fact that Israel was established as a nation in Canaan territory long before David’s reign is confirmed on an Egyptian stone inscription dated 1213 to 1203 BC called the Merneptah Stela Stone. This stone stands seven-and-a-half-feet high. It was discovered in the temple of Pharaoh Merneptah at Thebes in Egypt. Pharaoh Merneptah ruled Egypt at this time and on this stone stated that he had invaded the West Bank of Canaan and defeated the Jewish inhabitants of the land.^288/73

Most ancient historian’s writings are nothing more than fiction and hearsay without careful reseach and checking of facts. The Bible, however, shows just the opposite: the writers were careful and very accurate to the events of the day, chronology, sequence and concerning personalities involved.

In the past century one of the areas of the Bible that has been hard to confirm archaeologically has been the life of David the King of Israel until recently. Between 1993 and 1994 some archaeologists discovered several stone fragments while digging at Tel Dan in Galilee in Northern Israel which confirmed not only David’s existence but the fact that he was King over Israel in the tenth century BC.²⁶⁵

On an Inscription known as the Stela of King Mesha of Moab is inscribed the name of Omri King of Israel. His name also appears on the rock inscriptions of three kings of Assyria, the annals of both Tiglath-Phileser III and Sargon II, and the Black Obelisk of King Shalmaneser III.

Other Assyrian inscriptions found in Nineveh confirm other kings of Israel: Ahab, Jehu, Joash, Menehem, Pekah, and Hoshea. Other inscriptions found by archaeologists confirm Kings of Judah: Ahaziah, Uzziah, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Jehoiachin. Scholars also found records of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon 606 to 562 BC that mentioned Jehoiachin a king of Judah.

In 1846 an explorer by the name of Austen Henry Layard discovered a six-and-a-half-feet-high Black Obelisk in the ruins of Nimrud, present day Iraq. The Obelisk was a for-sided stone inscription that recorded the conquest of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser II over several kingdoms including King Jehu of Israel about 841 to 814 BC The Obelisk also refers to Omri, the son of Jehu which confirms the record of the Book of Kings in the Bible.^288/74

Archaeologist Nahman Avigad of Hebrew University with other scholars discovered the remains of the wall of King Hezekiah built when the Assyrian army attacked Israel in 701 BC. The Bible tells us that King Hezekiah built this wall in Jerusalem to resist the Assyrian armies (2 Chronicles 32:2-5). So urgent was the building of this wall that they cut through portions of homes to build it (Isaiah 22:10). This is exactly what the archaeologists found to be the case concerning this wall.

On view in an Israeli Museum are one of two clay seals in existence called bullae which bear the impression of the actual seal used by Baruch who was Jeremiah the Prophet’s personal scribe. The other seal is owned by Shlomo Moussaieff of London.

Another seal at the beginning of this century was found with the inscription, "Belonging to Shema servant of Jeroboam." This indicates that this belonged to an official of King Jeroboam of Israel. Other seals have been found confirming the Biblical records about King Uzziah (777 to 736 BC) and King Hezekiah (726 to 697 BC).^288/76

Another seal was discovered in Jerusalem which dates from the seventh century BC. On it was the inscription: "Belonging to Abdi Servant of Hoshea." It belonged to Abdi who was a high official of King Hosea who was the last king of northern Israel before the Assyrian army conquered it in 721 BC.^288/76-77

King Nebuchadnezzar had a policy of displacing peoples that he conquered and resettling them in distant parts of his empire. Israel was one of these people. However Ezra in Ezra 1:1-3 tells us that after King Cyrus of Persia conquered the Babylonian Empire he immediately reversed this policy and made a decree allowing all captive peoples to go back to their homelands. This included the people of Israel. Some explorers in the last century found an ancient clay cylinder which had this decree by King Cyrus inscribed on it.^288/77-78

These findings completely refute the arguments of the Documentary Hypothesis that Israel’s laws evolved over several hundreds of years and that the Torah had several editors rather than the one Jesus Himself confirmed: Moses. The historical and archaeological evidence do not support the Documentary Hypothesis but instead expose the complete lack of historical research and scholarship it is based on.^316/185 M.J. Lagrange, a man who was involved in biblical and archaeological endeavors in Jerusalem for nearly 40 years, wrote:

"It is a fact that the historical work of Welhausen is more than compromised. Theevolution which starts from fetishism to rise to monolatry and then to monotheism, or from a very rudimentary rustic worship to complicated social and sacerdotal institutions, cannot be maintained in face of the evidence of the facts revealed by the recent discoveries."^317/312-313

Josh McDowell sums up the value of these historical and archaeological finds:

"Its significance for the Bible-based Christian lies in the fact that it disproves three main presuppositions of liberal scholars: that there was no alphabet in Moses’ day; that society’s moral level was not high enough to have given rise to the laws of Deuteronomy; and that the different names of God within the Torah show that there were several writers of these books." ^180/25

Dr. Nelson Glueck, the most outstanding Jewish archeologist of this century, wrote in his book, Rivers in the Desert, this fascinating statement.

"It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries."^320/31

1. Albright W.F. The Archacology of Palestine. Baltimore: Penguin Books, revised 1960.
2. Glueck, Nelson. Rivers in the Desert. New York, Grove, 1960.
3. Free, Joseph P. & Vos, Howard F. Archaeology and Bible History. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992.
4. Jeffrey, Grant R. Armageddon. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Frontier Research Publications, © 1997 by Grant R. Jeffrey.
5. McDowell, Josh. Evidence That Demands A Verdict, Vol. 2. San Bernardino: Here’s Life Publishers, 1981.
6. McDowell, Josh. Evidence For Faith Series on tape.
7. Price, Randall. The Stones Cry Out. Eugene, Organ: Harvest House Publishers, Copyright © 1997 by World of the Bible Ministries, Inc.
8. Unger, Merrill F. Archaeology and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954.